'Miserable? Ah, well, I daresay there will not be cabbage every day,'

answered Madame Bonanni thoughtfully. 'And I like fish. Fortunately, I

am fond of fish. The simplest, you know. Only a fried sole with a

meunière sauce. Bah! When I talk of eating you never believe I am in

earnest. Go away, my beloved child! Go and write to little Miss Donne

that she may have all my engagements, because I am entering religion.

You shall see! She will marry you in a week. Go over to Paris and talk

to her. She is crying her eyes out for you, and that is bad for the

voice. It relaxes the vocal cords frightfully. I always have to gargle

for half-an-hour if I have been crying and am going to sing.' Through all her rambling talk, half earnest and half absurd, Lushington

detected the signs of a coming change. He did not think she would leave

the stage so suddenly as she said she would; he assuredly did not

believe that she would ever 'enter religion'; but he saw for the first

time that she was tired of the life she had led, that she felt herself

growing old and longed for rest and quiet. She had lived as very few

live, to satisfy every ambition and satiate every passion to the full,

and now, with advancing years, she had not the one great bad passion of

old age, which is avarice, as an incentive for prolonging her career.

In its place, on the contrary, stood her one redeeming virtue, that

abundant generosity which had made her welcome Margaret Donne's great

talent with honest enthusiasm, and which had been like a providence to

hundreds, perhaps to thousands of unknown men, women and children ever

since she had gained the means of helping the poor and distressed. But

it had been part of her nature to hide that. Logotheti, who managed

most of her business, knew more about her charities than her own son,

and the world knew next to nothing at all.




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